What Is Earned Media? Definition, Benefits and Examples

As a public relations professional, it bothers me to see paid media (also called “sponsored content”) disguised as earned media. In other words, it’s the sharing or coverage of my content that comes as a result of its quality, rather than my direct expense in placing it. As a marketing strategist, I look at earned media as the coverage I get based on the quality of my content versus the price I paid. Earned media is a valuable piece of press coverage that sheds a favorable light on a brand or individual. Earned media – the coverage resulting from engagment with current and potential customers – is the sweet spot in C2C, B2C and B2B marketing. When a full marketing plan comes together, earned media comes from all channels including press coverage and social distribution and sharing; and should be ultimately judged by the impact on leads and/or sales.

Since you’re paying for the release distribution and controlling the message, we categorize press release pick-up as paid media. By paying a third party to leverage their marketing channel with your content, paid media allows you to feed owned and earned media channels through very specific calls to action. AdWords is one of the most popular PPC platforms and will see your ads appear in relevant search results. As a result, the traditional relationship between owned, paid and earned media has changed, with the boundaries between them blurring and overlapping. Capturing earned media from social networks and tracking your metrics over time ensures you’re getting the full picture. You can turn to the news and blogs dataset to capture articles written about your brand for a news media perspective of your earned media.

If you're starting from scratch and you don't have much earned media, start by creating shareable content that resonates with your target audience. To get more reviews, it's often just as simple as encouraging happy customers to share their experiences. This might happen if you've previously partnered with an influencer who loved your products and continues to use and talk about them beyond the arranged partnership. However, if an influencer mentions you organically, you've hit the earned media jackpot.

This is exactly why marketers are investing time and effort into understanding earned media value and building strategies to increase it. Readers sought out and paid attention to information such as the independence and credentials of the journalist, the balance of the coverage, and the prestige of the outlet in which the story appeared. It is earned "through relationships, incredibly newsworthy stories, and targeted messaging", without paying the media outlet.

Earned Media vs. Paid Media

It could be a funny video, an inspiring story, or a cool infographic about your brand. If you are interested in taking our digital marketing course, you can check out our curriculum and register to get started today. Earned media is an important part of marketing because it is free publicity for a brand without paying for it. By sharing valuable content on your channels, you can build a loyal following over time.

Real-World Applications and Examples

• Earned media often includes backlinks and mentions that signal authority to search engines.
• The process in which links to other websites no longer work because those pages or sites are no longer unavailable.
• Take DuoLingo – who turned one form of earned media (press mentions) into another when they learned that people were using their app for dating.
• It’s rave reviews from brand advocates, and Twitter tirades by unhappy customers.
• All this data will give you a better idea of how your earned media efforts are going.

It includes press coverage, editorial backlinks, social shares, customer reviews, analyst mentions, and increasingly, citations in AI-generated answers. Earned media is any coverage, mention, citation, or share that a brand receives without paying for it and without publishing it on its own channels. Unlike paid placement, earned media takes time and consistent effort.

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Earned media builds long-term trust and tends to compound over time, but it’s harder to predict and slower to generate. Place an order for your target pages and keywords, and the Respona team takes care of the rest. Shared media (the social media platforms where audiences amplify mentions on their own) reinforces all three. The brands winning right now diversify their promotional efforts across owned media, paid media, and earned media simultaneously. It complements your existing content strategy and amplifies the credibility of every other promotional channel you’re running.

Read our Payroll Integrations Case Study to learn how we turned proprietary data into national headlines → As a result, Bold earned top-tier media coverage in TechCrunch, Retail Brew, PYMNTS and many more national and trade publications to solidify its position in the market and create sales enablement content with long-term utility. Bold Commerce wanted to establish category leadership in checkout optimization, a space that, at the time, was primarily dominated by legacy providers. It’s someone else—usually a trusted third party—saying your company is worth paying attention to.

Step 3: Tell Your Story

SEO practices that fall within the best-practice guidelines set forth by Google and other search engines. Semantic search helps search engines determine what people are looking for based on the phrasing of their searches. Writing copy in accordance with SEO best practices to rank well on earned media definition search engines and provide a positive user experience. If someone refers to their website appearing on “page 3 of the SERPs,” they are talking about appearing on the third page of results for a specific keyword.

The use of earned media is one of the most exciting aspects of digital media with investment increasing as marketers look to use influencer marketing through celebrities, professionals and micro-influencers to gain awareness on social media and publisher site. Tying earned media to revenue is harder than paid because it's diffuse and assists rather than directly converts, so it's often judged on awareness, reach, sentiment, and influence alongside downstream signals. Common metrics include media mentions and reach/impressions of coverage, share of voice versus competitors, social shares and engagement, referral traffic from earned sources, sentiment, and review volume and ratings.

Paid media is exposure you buy (ads); owned media is channels you control (your site, email, social profiles); earned media is exposure others give you (coverage, shares, word of mouth). It's considered particularly valuable due to its authenticity and credibility with audiences. Earned media is the name for the exposure that your brand gets as a result of good press, in-depth articles, and social media mentions that are not under your control or paid for by your company.

During earned media planning, analyze what stories can be enriched with gathered social proof. When you can support your words with others' opinions, you essentially give stronger reasons to share your story. Social proof can add credibility and relevant context to your stories. Effective coverage drives public interest, influences opinions, and supports business goals by attracting customers and investors. Securing press coverage boosts visibility and credibility. Well-fostered relationships can result in more frequent and quality coverage, making your brand a credible source of information.

It includes any content or mention of a brand that customers, influencers, or media outlets voluntarily share. By effectively engaging audiences and building relationships with influencers, brands can harness earned media for long-t This type differs from paid media and owned media as it relies on customer reviews, media mentions, and social media shares rather than financial investment.